Siri for WP7, not quite, but free ask Ziggy app is impressive

When we first got to try out Siri on the iPhone 4S it was hard not to be impressed by pocket-sized personal assistant, recently we have heard of a similar app showing up at the Android Market (which was subsequently removed) and now we have a great free app for Windows Phone 7 to tell you about which proves that Siri is not necessarily head and shoulders above the competition.

This app is called ‘Ask Ziggy’ and not only is it free, but it is not supported by ads either, the official descriptions states that it brings Siri-like functionality to WP7 and we forgive you for being skeptical, but keep reading on to find out just how good this application really is. You can get Ask Ziggy from the Windows Phone Marketplace here.

At the bottom of the post we have embedded a video which was uploaded to the WMExperts YouTube channel, here we see Ziggy deal with a long-list of questions and the app does incredibly well – we have to remember that this app has been developed by a relatively small dev team called Averotek. The look of the application and how it runs is very much like Siri, however we are hoping to see future updates to enhance functionality and further integrate itself into WP7.

You can see a full list of commands over at the official Ask Ziggy website, we were pleasantly surprised by the answers given to questions such as “What’s the square root of 100?”, “Who directed Star Wars? and “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” – in fact the answers given went above and beyond what we expected – see the image below. Answers are read out by Ziggy and shown in text, if an answer cannot be found a link is usually provided.

Perhaps the most impressive feature is something which Siri is incapable of, basically if you say “Update” followed by a sentence it will tweet that message and set it as your status on Facebook – how neat is that!

Comments on YouTube suggest that Microsoft should hire the guy that came up with the application and we agree, reviews on the WP7 marketplace are mixed, however we think that you should see this app as a work-in-progress and understand just how much hard work has gone into this app to get it to the stage it is currently at.